Ninette de Valois uses a restrained, simple vocabulary of classic movement in this ballet, and achieves by it a survey of narrative moments - just as Hogarth did - that are sometimes witty, sometimes poignant, but always striking The symmetries and patterns of her style of choreography is Modernist in manner - a sparing geometry which doubtless seems to some to lack the colour and floridity of high ballet, but to this eye worked very efficiently.
      There is delicious comedy in the opening scene, where a gaggle of hangers-on including a tailor, a fencing master and a dancing master begin the Rake's downfall by preying on his pocket. The Betrayed Girl comes woefully in, presenting her impregnated belly to the Rake in a wonderfully clever simple gesture which, with the mixed step on points and flat feet as she makes her melancholy way across the stage, vividly captures her plight.
      The Ladies of the Town are a very plausible and enchanting lot in the orgy scene that follows. They are Rowlandson versions of Moulin Rouge high kickers, frilly knickers on raucous display. After a "virtuous interlude" and a gambling den scene in which the Rake's end draws night, there is nothing left but the madhouse, and here the mood changes: even though the Betrayed Girl comes to forgive and save, it is too late, and the Rake expires in an agony of lunacy.
      Viacheslav Samodurov is a fine Rake - with his shirt off he is also a perfect anatomy lesson - and he dances the fool, the debaucher and debauchee, the anguished gambler, and the dying madman with gusto in the earlier scenes and conviction in the later scenes. Belinda Hatley is a beautiful and touching Betrayed Girl; she dances with eloquence and in this character real sweetness. Add the legendary sets and costumes, and the intriguing Modernist restraint of the resources de Valois uses, and the result is pleasing. This is the 89th performance by the Royal Ballet; it merits more frequent staging.

Divertissements

Eight pieces of varying length make up the delicious miscellany of dance that tracks the decades of Queen Elizabeth II's life - for this evening culminates in performance of "Homage to the Queen" for the Queen's 80th birthday; Ninette de Valois' Rake's Progress was first staged in 1935, at the end of the Queen's first decade of life; so the evening is a balletic survey spanning the Queen's lifetime, and the Divertissements between them mark some of the highlights.
      Ninette de Valois' "Job: Satan's Solo" to music by Vaughn Williams seems to step straight out of a Blake engraving, and has the same Modernist sharpness of line as frequently visible in the Rake's Progress. It is energetically danced by Martin Harvey.
      An Ashton fragment to Liszt, "Dante Sonata Solo", is engagingly and fleetingly performed by Mariela Nunez, by her long arched nodding making her clouds of hair an adjunct to the dance itself.
      In beautiful costumes and full lighting Alexandra Ansanelli and Valeri Hristov dance Ashton's ambitious "Birthday Offering Pas de Deux" to music by Glazunov. It is a demanding piece, asking for strength and a talent for precipitous balance reminiscent of the suitor scene in The Sleeping Beauty. There were accordingly some wobbles here, but they failed to spoil the overall glowing effect.
      What stole the evening absolutely, and took everyone's breath away, was the Balcony Pas De Deux from Romeo and Juliet, ravishingly danced by the incomparable Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg. Cojocaru is Juliet, so instinctively and completely, that the coursing of emotion through her all but non-corporeal body is visible, like streaks of colour undulating through clear running water. MacMillan is a genius at romantic pas de deux, and Prokofiev's music is fitting beyond all imagination of an alternative: add these wonderful dancers to that combination, and it explains why the audience did not wish the evening to proceed afterwards.
      But it is well that it did, for the next piece was MacMillan's "Elite Syncopations Bethena" to Scott Joplin's music, with Edward Watson and Mara Galeazzi in spectacularly wonderful costumes dancing a powerful, erotic, vivid duet. This by itself would be a show-stopper on any evening in the week, and deserves to become a standard of the repertoire. Ashton's "Rhapsody Pas De Deux" to Rachmaninov was a more thoughtful and studied affair, beautifully danced by Leanne Benjamin and Federico Bonelli. MacMillan's "Winter Dreams Farewell Pas De Deux" to Tchaikovsky, with the Tamara Rojo and Thiago Soares. These exceptionally fine dancers seemed slightly uncomfortable - was the impression generated by the unsympathetic stiffness of Soares' costume, a military uniform? It was the least striking of the pieces, and anyway outshone by the "Qualia Pas De Deux" choreographed by Wayne Mortimer to music by Scanner, danced by Lauren Cutherbertson and Ricardo Cervera. In what begins by looking like a Calvin Klein advertisement for underwear the two evolve a passionate, searching relationship, uncompromisingly physical and even risky, but strung through with intimacy and tenderness also - a peculiarly contemporary piece, recognisable as something true to our own times.

Home to the Queen

If one could prescind from the obsequious kitsch of the production and the ghastly bombast of the music, there are some fine moments of dance in this otherwise highly avoidable piece of flummery. The best things are Steven McRae as the Spirit of Fire, and Tamara Rojo as the majestic Queen of the Air. There are fine Ashton touches in the choreography for the latter, and Christopher Wheeldon attains genius in his choreography for the Fire sequence. When next a miscellany is put together in the fashion of the Divertissements, let these be chosen for immortalisation. For the rest, and especially for the vacuous pomp of the opening and especially ending, consignment to a merciful oblivion is the kindest thing one can suggest.
AC Grayling